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REMEMBERING CINERAMA (Part 55: Buffalo)

The following is an ongoing, semi-regular series of retrospectives on CINERAMA, the legendary motion picture process that kicked off the widescreen revolution. The series focuses on providing a market-by-market historical record of when and where Cinerama and its multi-panel clones were exhibited. These easy-to-reference articles serve to provide nostalgia to those who experienced the Cinerama presentations when they were new and to honor the movie palaces in which the memorable screenings took place.

And now… Part 55: Cinerama (& CineMiracle) Presentations in Buffalo, New York!

Compiled by Michael Coate & Vince Young

THIS IS CINERAMA
Theater: Teck
Premiere Date: March 16, 1955
Engagement Duration: 46 weeks
Projection Format: 3-strip / 26 frames per second / 7-track stereo
Promotional Hype: “Now that you’ve seen all the others…get set for the revolutionary screen entertainment event that puts you in the picture!” “Something wonderful in motion picture entertainment! For the first time, a motion picture reaches out to bring you into the story…to put you in the picture — with the intensely personal experience of all its excitement and thrills!” “The Teck Theatre is Proud to Become the 15th Theatre in the United States and Canada That Will or Can Show CINERAMA” “The [Teck Is The] Only Theatre Between Detroit And New York That Can Or Will Show Cinerama!”

SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD
Teck
August 29, 1956
58 weeks
3-strip / 26fps / 7-track stereo
“The New, The 3rd CINERAMA Presentation Will Light Up The Entertainment Sky. There’s nothing in the world like it. When YOU share the fabulous pageantry…live the intimate drama…as YOU hurtle to the four corners of the globe”

TRIVIA / NOTES:
Buffalo was the 14th market in the United States to equip for Cinerama presentations.

Buffalo was among the first markets to give up on Cinerama. In February 1958, after playing only four of the five travelogues, the Cinerama projection and sound equipment was removed from the Teck. The Teck’s equipment was returned to Cinerama headquarters and then subsequently installed at the Plaza in Melbourne, Australia. (Cinerama would return to Buffalo four years later.)

The engagement of IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD was prematurely terminated due to a labor dispute which caused the Teck to close for several weeks. Buffalo’s 7-week run was the shortest of the 49 first-run Cinerama engagements of IAMMMMW in North America.

Buffalo was the only one of the seven Cinerama markets in the state of New York to play a Cinerama presentation of CUSTER OF THE WEST.

The Holiday was a six-screen complex and was located in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga. The 70mm re-release of THIS IS CINERAMA screened in auditorium #2. This was the largest complex (screen-wise) to have played a Cinerama feature.

REFERENCES:
Various issues of Boxoffice, Buffalo Evening News, and Variety.

Trying to contact Michael Coate and have tried to do so at the Digital Bits site. No matter what code I type in, none of my messages go through. Have questions about THE SOUND OF MUSIC article he wrote, and more.